A group of Iranian hackers called Black Shadow has leaked the personal credentials of hundreds of thousands of Israeli medical patients’ appointment details and members of аn LGBTQ site in a ransomware attack on Tuesday night.
According to the local reports, the information that has been released in public includes names, addresses, personal information, appointments and medical test results of more than 290,000 patients of a specific medical center and vaccine status, the info on blood tests, treatments, CT scans, colonoscopies, and ultrasounds. The group has also released the full database from LGBTQ dating service Atraf, including their names, locations, and in some cases, their HIV status too.
Also, reports reveal that the Black Shadow group has stolen the data after targeting Israeli hoster CyberServe, which has denied paying a $1m ransom.
“Describing this as one of the most serious attacks on privacy that Israel has ever seen," the Head of the Israel Internet Association Yoram Hacohen told the Times of Israel that "Israeli citizens are experiencing cyber terrorism. This is terrorism in every sense and the focus now must be on minimizing the damage and suppressing the distribution of the information as much as possible."
Times of Israel reported that several other customers of CyberServe have been victimized on the same line, including transportation companies, museums, and tourism organizations. The information was reportedly uploaded to a Telegram channel.
The Head of the Israel Internet Association Yoram Hacohen has blamed Telegram for the surge in cyber crimes activities in the nation. The chief said that “Telegram has failed to establish boundaries and is partially responsible for this as the social media platform does not limit the spread of private information”.
The patients' data was released a few hours after the same cybercriminal group leaked the whole user database of an LGBTQ dating website in the country. The reports suggest that the data has been leaked as a threat to the dating app website as the owners of the app had refused to pay a ransom.
